Dracula 1931

Dracula 1931, hand-drawn portrait of Bela Lugosi, age 49, playing the iconic vampire Dracula in the 1931 Universal Pictures film.

Dracula is a 1931 American pre-Code vampire film directed and co-produced by Tod Browning from a screenplay written by Garrett Fort and starring Bela Lugosi in the title role.
It is based on the stage play Dracula by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, which in turn is adapted from the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.
Lugosi portrays Count Dracula, a vampire who emigrates from Transylvania to England and preys upon the blood of living victims, including a young man’s fiancée.

Produced and distributed by Universal Pictures, Dracula is the first sound film adaptation of the Stoker novel.
Several actors were considered to portray the title character, but Lugosi, who had previously played the role on Broadway, eventually got the part.

When the film finally premiered at the Roxy Theatre in New York City on February 12, 1931, newspapers reported that members of the audiences fainted in shock at the horror on screen.
Within 48 hours of its opening at New York’s Roxy Theatre, it had sold 50,000 tickets, building a momentum that culminated in a $700,000 profit, the largest of Universal’s 1931 releases.

Bela Lugosi began acting on the Hungarian stage in 1902, appearing in more than 170 productions. Beginning in 1917, he performed in Hungarian silent films. During World War I, he served as an infantry officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army from 1914 to 1916. After the failed Hungarian Communist Revolution of 1919, Lugosi was forced to emigrate to Germany due to his Socialist party activities.
He acted in several films in Weimar Germany, before arriving in New Orleans as a seaman on a merchant ship, then making his way north to New York City and Ellis Island.

In 1927, he starred as Count Dracula in a Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel, moving with the play to the West Coast in 1928 and settling down in Hollywood.

Lugosi had played the role of Dracula on Broadway, and was considered before director Tod Browning cast him in the role.
To his good fortune, Lugosi happened to be in Los Angeles with a touring company of the play when the film was being cast.
Against the tide of studio opinion, Lugosi lobbied hard and ultimately won the executives over, thanks in part to his acceptance of a paltry salary of $3,500 for seven weeks of work.

Through his association with Dracula (in which he appeared with minimal makeup, using his natural, heavily accented voice), Lugosi found himself typecast as a horror villain in films.

His five films at Universal – The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936), Son of Frankenstein (1939), Black Friday (1940), plus minor cameo performances in Gift of Gab (1934) and two at RKO Pictures, You’ll Find Out (1940) and The Body Snatcher (1945) – paired Lugosi with Boris Karloff.

Lugosi developed severe, chronic sciatica, ostensibly aggravated by injuries received during his military service.
His chronic pain and increased dependence on opiates, particularly morphine and methadone, led to the dwindling of Lugosi’s screen offers.

Lugosi was married five times.
At age 73, Lugosi died of a heart attack on August 16, 1956, in the bedroom of his Los Angeles apartment while taking a nap.

Lugosi was buried wearing a Dracula cape, his full costume, and his Dracula ring in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

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